Do you recall Ethan Hawke's character in Gattaca who "never saved anything for the swim back?" As I went, I kept thinking of that great line and how I was going to apply that same sentiment and allocate all my energy towards getting far away from my house. It's a hard ideal to live because not thinking about the way back is a great way to blow the better part of your morning on a ridiculously long jog. I confess I saved something for the jog back, but not nearly as much as I should have saved. My jog was really more like two different jogs with a little break in between--one jog to get down the trail, a sizable break where I walked around and looked for a bathroom (with limited success--I found some, but they were locked for the season) and then another jog to get back.
Based on my anecdotal (and therefore meaningless) experience today, I feel like the camaraderie is better between joggers on trails than it is between joggers on streets. Many of the joggers today waved to me or made eye contact. I think I was reasonably friendly, too, though I confess that I frequently experience a strong urge to yell to the other joggers that if they had as much heart as I do, they would have become professional runners by now. This is widely considered poor trail etiquette. No one likes to share the trail with a pompous liar, no matter how much he overstates the innate athleticism of other joggers or how silly he looks.
(I note that I always feel like I look silly when I jog. I really enjoy feeling that I don't have to worry about how I look, but I struggle to escape the sense that something about my outfit--which includes a gaiter, a headband, old-style over-ear headphones, gloves, shirts, shorts and gallons of sweat--combined with my physique somehow makes it obvious that I am ridiculous in some profound, fundamental way).
Here's a map of half of my jog. I took exactly the same route back. I don't claim it was too out of hand in absolute terms as far as distances go, but it is the farthest I've ever gone in one session and it did take about twice as much time as I meant to spend (I include the slow wandering near that skate park at the end as part of the time, but not part of the map).
2 comments:
Dag yo. You jogged 6.8 miles? That's pretty impressive. I actually used to run that trail a lot once. Chad Christensen and I ran it a couple times a week to the same spot. I always was a little creeped out by the tunnels and saddened by the trailer park. Any similar feelings? On and then once you get to the other side of Genev, it is weird. Like a new world you've entered.
I felt some simliar feelings. The tunnels were definitely creepier this morning because they were darker. I mean, a snake, or a bit of uneven ground could be lurking in there and that can really ruin your run.
I definitely had strong feelings about the trailer park, but it wasn't sadness. Even though I try to avoid romanticizing poverty, I kind of couldn't resist. I thought about how simple and unpretentious their lives might be and how they could still have fun and be happy. I wondered if some of them were geniuses in the witness protection program. I thought about how some of them might be the best rapper in the world or something close (like Eminem). I also kind of like run down parts of town because they remind me of young families and I particularly liked the part of my life when my parents were young and not rich (we never lived in a trailer park, but we did live in a neighborhood that has since become a place my mother would avoid driving through now).
There was a bit of sadness when it occurred to me that I'm already at a point in my life where I order books from Amazon.com basically without hesitation (I was thinking about what it would be like to get mail when you live in a trailer--what if you drive away?). In contrast, people who live in trailer parks might have to save up to buy, e.g., Introductory Quantum Optics (the last book I ordered), or some such title. So, there was a bit of sadness.
Also, please don't take this the wrong way, but I had a bit of deja vu in the trailer park section of the trail. It reminded me of a zoo that we (my brothers and I) used to visit as kids. It was called the "gator farm" and it mostly had different kinds of alligators and a few emus. Skipping school to go there was one of my absolute favorite things (I was in elementary school at the time). I think it was the way the trail has fences on both sides, the asphault and the trees that conjured that memory. It didn't occur to me that the people in the trailers were like alligators. Even if it had occurred to me that the people in the trailer park were like alligators, it's not clear to me that they should be offended (I'm very fond of alligators).
Geneva road was like a new world. There was a skate park. It was definitely weird. I didn't get much farther than that.
Post a Comment